2025 Whakatipu Music Festival
Introducing our Young Artists: Violists Tal Amoore and Yuxin Chen.
In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter.
About Tal:
Born in Sydney and based in Aotearoa, violist Tal Amoore a recipient of the NZSM Director’s Award, he is completing his Bachelor of Music at Te Kōkī, New Zealand School of Music, studying with Peter Clark and Gillian Ansell. He is a founding member of the Antipodes Quartet, a newly formed ensemble in partnership with Chamber Music New Zealand, the New Zealand String Quartet, and the Adam Chamber Music Festival.
A versatile orchestral musician, Tal has performed with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, NZ Opera, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Orchestra Wellington, Wellington Opera, the Hawke’s Bay Symphony Orchestra, and the Nelson Symphony Orchestra. He has also participated in the Gisborne International Music Competition, National Concerto Competition, and the National String Competition, where he was a semi-finalist.
Tal was recently awarded one of two Royal Over-Seas League Pettman Scholarship’s. He has also been an Emerging Artist at the At the World’s Edge Festival in 2022 and 2024.
See Tal perform at Next Gen 1 and Musical Smorgasbord.
“Chamber music has always been my greatest joy. There’s something magical about stepping into a rehearsal with musicians who each bring their own ideas and energy, and then shaping a piece together in real time.” – Tal
About Yuxin:
Yuxin Chen was born in Shenzhen, China, where she started playing viola at the age of eight. In 2010 she was accepted into the Shenzhen Arts school in China where she studied under Nisha Ren. Yuxin received a full scholarship from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2018, where she received lessons from Professor Louise Lansdown.
She was also awarded Leverhulme Art Scholarship in 2020. Yuxin completed her Masters degree in viola at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 2024, where she studied under the guidance of Professor Marjolein Dispa.
Deeply passionate about both chamber and orchestral music, Yuxin has performed with a variety of ensembles and festivals. She participated in the Grafenegg Festival in 2023 and Dorset Opera Orchestra in 2022 and she is also a member of the Damsco Quartet. Yuxin joined the NSKA (Nederlandse Strijkkwartet Academie) in 2023 under the mentorship of Marc Danel.
Yuxin has participated in masterclasses led by Thomas Riebl, Martin Outram, Garth Knox, Wolfram Christ, Timothy Ridout, and Nobuko Imai, among others.
See Yuxin perform at Urbane and Musical Smorgasbord.
“I’m looking forward to exploring amazing chamber music together, and learning from so many great musicians. It’s going to be such an inspiring experience.” Yuxin.
See both Tal and Yuxin perform at:
This week we are taking you through the programme for our fifth concert of the festival, Musical Smorgasbord! To view the rest of our programme and find tickets for our other concerts, visit the Whakatipu Music Festival programme page.
Otis Prescott-Mason performs Liszt’s single-movement piano sonata, regarded as one of the pinnacles of classical Romantic-era pianism. Its slow, gentle opening belies the drama, exuberance and delicacy – and skill of the pianist – that emerge as the work unfolds.
At the other end of the table of delights in this concert is Rebecca Clarke’s award-winning sonata for viola and piano. Requiring prodigious talent from viola soloist Yuxin Chen, this 20th century work starts with a vibrant fanfare from the viola, morphs through languid and lyrical melodies to lively central core, and an adagio (slow) finale that ends with a surprising dramatic flourish.
An ensemble of Festival Young Artists performs a piano quintet by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (not to be confused with the earlier English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) who was only 18 when he composed his piano quintet in 1893- it is filled with strong rhythms, rich and lyrical melodies and virtuosic embellishments for each of the five players and is becoming a staple in the romantic era literature.
“I’m especially excited to perform Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Piano Quintet in the Musical Smorgasbord concert. Coleridge-Taylor was only 18 when he wrote this piece, and you can feel the youthful energy bursting through the music” says Tal Amoore.
Time for some purely vocal entertainment. Felicity Tomkins, Austin Haynes, Ivan Zhang and Mark Robb take centre stage to showcase soprano, countertenor, tenor and bass voices and perform vocal works ranging from Summertime (from Porgy and Bess), Evening Prayer (from Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’) through to two (of five) ‘Shakespeare Songs’ composed by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) as incidental music for plays by Shakespeare, and Stephen Sondheim’s Agony (from ‘Into the Woods’) in an entertaining smorgasbord of musical styles and eras. Cheers!
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Felicity Tomkins, Soprano
Austin Haynes, Countertenor
Ivan Zhang, Tenor
Mark Bobb, Baritone
Sarah Lee and Esther Oh, Violin
Yuxin Chen and Tal Amoore, Viola
Damon Herlihey-O’Brien, Cello
Otis Prescott-Mason, William Sun and Stephen De Pledge, Piano
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Liszt (1811 – 1886): Piano Sonata in B Minor S178
Rebecca Clarke (1886 -1979): Sonata for Viola and Piano
i. Impetuoso
ii. Vivace
iii. Adagio
Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912): Piano Quintet in g minor, Op 1
I. Allegro con moto
II. Larghetto
III. Scherzo
IV. Allegro molto
Kander & Ebb: Willkommen from Cabaret
Sammy Fain: Secret Love from Calamity Jane
Nico Dostal: Spiel’ mir das Lied from Die Ungarische Hochzeit
Humperdink (1854 – 1921): Evening Prayer from Hansel and Gretel
Bernstein (1918 – 1990): Maria from Westside Story
Sullivan (1842 – 1900): Orpheus with his Lute and O Mistress Mine
Stephen Sondheim (1930 – 2021): Agony! from Into the Woods
Buy Tickets to Music Smorgasbord here.
